Comments on news posted 2013-12-02 11:28:58: Just when you thought that Comcast had found all streams of revenue from advertisement dollars, they have found a new way to raise their profits: Change the Nielson ratings to make Comcast look better. ..
That's why they need to do dynamic commercial insertion based on your viewing habits and the profile they develop of you. Next they'll want you to identify yourself before you watch a TV show so they can target you correctly...
So eventually, will they: A. Force me to stop watching TV since I don't buy their crap? B. Discontinue my service for being a "bad" consumer?
Seriously... I pay a premium to not see ads I pay in 2 ways. I pay for amazon prime and other services that don't have ads. the other way I pay is by waiting until shows I want to see are available on those services?
Make people not be able to skip commercials. Que the rage.....and the questions about why if commercials are so important why do people pay for access of the broadcast?
...change the measuring stick. If you think you weigh too much, buy a new scale.
Hopefully Nielsen will tell them to go to hell. There is a reason Comcast is euphemistically called Comcrap. They spread it around rather thick. They are as bad as AT&T.
If Comcast stops fast forwarding of DVRd repeat episodes, then it is goodbye to Comcast's DVR service and their STBs. And hello to Tivo DVRs with their lower cablecard fees.
But who want's an accurate count of who's watching a show, they just care about being able to set the price of ads. They don't care about the shows, to them shows are just the painfully necessary item needed to show ads during.
That's the sad truth, TV Shows are nothing more than a device to deliver advertising.
There would be no point in renting a DVR anymore so they will see "see that's why we need to do this" but in reality there are so many commercials that most shows are unwatchable. Think of all the customers they will lose and all the remaining who drop dvr service.
Just download your shows from torrent websites. You get better quality, no commercials, subtitles and don't spend an extra 10 minutes being force-fed things you don't want to buy. 3 shows in an hour or 2 with 20 minutes of ads? You decide.
Re: Stop fast forwarding on DVRd shows; hello TIVO
Once they go to a "cloud DVR" model, you won't really have a choice. The point there will be to monetize you again by controlling the stream and what you see. At that point they could inject ads into the stream like others do and personalize them by a kinect-like device to see who is in the room. Case closed, money made for those who will subject themselves to that level of privacy.
The only remaining barrier will be cablecard, and they are actively trying to kill it.
Note to operators: Nobody in my house will ever watch commercials again, and especially pay for it, so you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Get yourself something like this - »amzn.to/ZdL9nL and take back control. Renting DVRs is a total scam. With Windows Media Center as your base TV-PC, you can add as many 'DVR's as you want with xbox360s on your home network (live TV + DVR) all with just one cablecard.
As longs as commercials "PAY" for my viewing, sure I'll watch commercials but this while per subscriber fee added in with commercial fee's to the networks, I should be able to fast forward through commercials.
Yeah, that's a great question, right? If missed commercials = billions of dollars, then we better damn well see our monthly fees reduced if we actually sit and watch them.
I was orginally going to say Dr. Jakob Neilsen would not allow it, but he is not part of Neilsen Ratings, nor has he ever been.
All things considered, and the number of owners and changes this company has undergone since A.J. formed it, Comcast probably has enough cash to write its own ratings. It seems in America that if one has enough money one can buy anything including a faux rating.
I dropped cable long ago for a better quality picture, more viewing choices, and lower prices. My cable, phone and Dish costs about $124/tax.